{"id":2350,"date":"2016-12-13T06:39:50","date_gmt":"2016-12-13T11:39:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.graymanwrites.com\/blog\/?p=2350"},"modified":"2016-12-12T22:48:02","modified_gmt":"2016-12-13T03:48:02","slug":"why-im-not-self-publishing-my-novel-part-ii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/why-im-not-self-publishing-my-novel-part-ii\/","title":{"rendered":"Why I’m Not Self-Publishing My Novel, Part II"},"content":{"rendered":"
(If you’re interested, Part I of the series is here<\/a>.)<\/em><\/h5>\n

To recap: my near-future science fiction novel, Walking on the Sea of Clouds<\/em>, is in the pipeline to be published by WordFire Press, and a few weeks ago a newsletter reader sent in this question: Why did I go with a small press instead of self-publishing?<\/strong> I came up with three reasons.<\/p>\n

Last week I laid out my first reason: the value a publisher adds to a novel. So here we go with:<\/p>\n

Second, I Value Publishers’ Selectivity<\/strong><\/p>\n

I may be more aware of this aspect of publishing because I’m on the front lines of selecting novels for a major publisher — Baen Books — but in general novels selected for publication by big houses and small presses alike have crossed a certain threshold of quality, simply by virtue of being selected from a large number of submissions.<\/p>\n

\"Be<\/a><\/p>\n

Imagine that you can only afford one (or maybe two) out of all the books on all those shelves — that’s what a publisher faces in selecting novels to publish. (Image: “Be the first to read…,” by Thomas Leuthard, on Flickr under Creative Commons.)<\/em><\/h5>\n

 <\/p>\n

The “threshold of quality” assumption may not be equally true in all cases — some publishers take chances on novels and other books they might not usually take, for various reasons — but in most cases a novel gets into the publication pipeline because someone declares it good enough to carry the publisher’s logo. In fact, often it’s multiple someones: an initial reader (or two or three), maybe a senior editor, perhaps others in the marketing and management end of things, and of course the in-person publisher.<\/p>\n

I consider that a vote of confidence in my favor, and I appreciate it.<\/p>\n

The publisher’s selectivity is not, of course, a guarantee of success. There are no such guarantees. I don’t know if the story will capture people’s attention, though I certainly hope<\/strong> it does.\u00a0We’ll see, won’t we?<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, next week I’ll cover the third reason I’m trusting a publisher with my novel instead of self-publishing it.<\/p>\n

___
\nP.S. This blog series was originally an issue of my every-once-in-a-while newsletter. You can subscribe<\/a> to get the latest on my goings-on and projects.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"pinterest\"<\/a>\"linkedin\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>by <\/span>\"feather\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(If you’re interested, Part I of the series is here.) To recap: my near-future science fiction novel, Walking on the Sea of Clouds, is in the pipeline to be published by WordFire Press, and a few weeks ago a newsletter reader sent in this question: Why did I go with \u2026 Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[225,411,386,387],"class_list":["post-2350","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-writing","tag-book","tag-publishing","tag-science-fiction-2","tag-writing-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2350","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2350"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2350\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2351,"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2350\/revisions\/2351"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}